Poutokomanawa

by
Gareth Barlow

details

Poutokomanawa were carved figures attached to posts inside a whare (meeting house) that greeted guests as they entered. This painting was my attempt to acknowledge the ancestors pre-European contact. Traditional carvings represent ancestors who were important to Iwi's whakapapa (genealogy). It is a way of remembering their past. We are blessed with the portraits created after contact, but I wanted to acknowledge the many generations that populated the land for hundreds of years before European settlement.